With the upcoming release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, those who disliked The Last Jedi and choices made in the film wondering whether or not it would effect the overall arch of the finale of the Skywalker Saga. However, those who were worried should worry no more as J.J Abrams confirmed that none of the choices made in The Last Jedi would effect the upcoming film. Abrams stated,
“There were some choices that made things a bit more fun for us, because, for example, Rian didn’t have the whole group collaborative adventure of it together, and that was really fun to get to tell the story of the group, the droids, out on one breakneck, crazy, desperate adventure. You know?” Abrams shared with Esquire. “The choices that he made for me were as a fan, as a reader of the script, a fan of his, a fan of Star Wars… it was just fun to read someone’s take that was so about surprising the viewer and it was just really entertaining, because it was, it got to surprise me nearly every time. So, I loved it for that.”
“As a filmmaker, working on Episode IX, amazingly, nothing that he did in Last Jedi got in the way of things that we had talked about wanting to do down the line, ideas that I had about where things might go, so… it wasn’t like his story somehow derailed the things I wanted to pursue. In fact, strangely, they might have even helped strengthen them because we got to make some choices that sort of take advantage of the fact that Rian hadn’t done the things that we were thinking about doing.”
“When I read his first draft, it made me laugh, because I saw that was his take and his voice,”
“I got to watch cuts of the movie as he was working on it, as an audience member. And I appreciated the choices he made as a filmmaker that would probably be very different from the choices that I would have made. Just as he would have made different choices if he had made Episode VII.”
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters December 20th, 2019.
